weekend 2, still alive

Well everyone, it's August 13 and I'm still alive and kicking. This past weekend brought a whole new round of adventures. Thursday night was a major first. I was invited to the wedding of one of my co-workers at SilverKey, Hossam Zain. However, before delving into the wedding itself, I must first comment on my pre-wedding experience. Egypt, Cairo in particular, is world renown for its insane traffic, from the congestion, to the pollution burning your eyes, to the ever-present symphony of honking taxis. Living in downtown Cairo, right between Midan Tahrir and Midan Talethaarb, I've grown used to dealing with the traffic. I'd relate it to the once famous game, frogger. Once you build up the necessary nerve to step into the apparently seamless wave of oncoming traffic, it can take a number of moves, forward, backward, side-to-side, to finally make it across. So far every day has been a flawless victory. I hope to keep it up.

Thursday night gave me a glimpse of the other side, Cairo's traffic from behind the wheel. Taher, the CEO of SilverKey in Cairo, was generous enough to drive us to the wedding. Getting into the car I had no idea what was to come. Driving through the city was easy enough, a few honks here, some swerving there. The real fun started once we made it onto one of the many overpasses that transverse Cairo. There was an instantaneous acceleration from 60 k/h to 120 k/m, accompanied by violent weaving, ducking and swerving. Cars were simply obstacles in Taher's path. While he's a great CEO, I think a more fitting career may be found in F1 racing. Without so much as a flinch, Taher confidently placed his car in spaces we in the states would consider dangerous for bicycles to pass through.

After 20 minutes of alternating horror and awe, getting to the wedding was a bit of an emotional relief. Walking in, I had no idea what to expect. The wedding itself was held in Nasir City, outside what is considered Cairo, in a complex built for such ceremonies. When we arrived, an hour late, we realized we were some of the first guests there. I admit that I was surprised that people were more than an hour late to the wedding party but my Egyptian co-workers confided that it was what they had expected. Time truly works different in this country. After 30 minutes of chatting, we were told that the bride and groom were on there way. Walking downstairs, I was greeted not only by the dancing bride and groom, but their dancing families, dancing friends, and an entire band of drum players and horn players complete with two men capturing it all on t.v. style video cameras. To say that Egyptians take their wedding parties seriously is a major understatement. We all danced our ways upstairs into the reserved room. Once inside, the bride and groom had to sign all the needed marriage documents. While I have no idea how long it takes in the States, the simple task of signing, fingerprinting and witnessing all the freakin' papers took 20 long sweaty minutes. As soon as they were done, dancing commenced, with all of the SilverKey team breaking it down. It was later noted by Kent that while we had no idea what we were doing, the Egyptians loved pulling the white kids into the dance. Whether it was out of kindness and generosity or to laugh at our horrid dancing, we'll never know. After a few hours of music the food was served, devoured and cleared in 15 minutes. It was a feeding frenzy comparable to the Bonney household after a hard-fought hockey game. After the food was gone, everyone said there good byes and left. All in all, it was a fantastic evening.

After the wedding was over, Kent told me he was heading up to Alex the next morning. I decided to tag along. After another mind-blowing ride up to Alex in a micro-bus weaving in and out of traffic at 160 k/h on the dessert road, we arrived in Alexandria to visit Luli, my new friend from Scrabble night. Our main mission upon arrival was eating the world famous fuul from Muhammad Ahmed's, Alexandria's self-proclaimed fuul master. From now on, I vow to travel in foreign countries with native people. Luli, a native Alexandrian, ordered us up an entire table of food. Literally food stacked on top of food. It started with the normal bread and pickled vegetables, moved into the tahina, fried cheese (yes, and its incredible), ending with the famous Alexandrian fuul. It took us awhile, but we slowly cleared the table. We waddled out 45 minutes later to walk off the fuul along the beach front. Alex is built around a huge bay leading out into the Mediterranean Sea. At its mouth once stood the famous Light House of Alexandria and the statue of Zeus, straddling the two points. With the breeze from the Med. in our faces we walked along listening to Luli describe the storied past of her city. We stopped briefly for some ice cream before driving to the Yacht Club located at the tip of the Western point of the bay. In the club we met up with Taher and his family, then decided to take a swim in the Sea. After a day of eating and walking, the swim was heavenly. After watching the sun set over the Med. dinner at another famous kafta place, Kent and I headed back to Cairo, fat and happy.

Friday night getting back to Cairo, we met up with Chris and headed to a party at Steve's house. I won't go into the details, as this post is already ridiculously long, but I encourage all of you to go ahead and ask Kent. He had a great time fighting refrigerators and screaming the lyrics to Kayne's Gold Digger.

Sorry for the long post.

out

luke